SF Mission historical auto livery adjusts – or not – to the 21st Century

For nearly 100 years, the Superior Auto garage has visually dominated the corner of 16th and Albion streets. Built by famed architect Joseph L. Stewart, the monumental garage was built to herald the arrival of the single-occupant automobile, San Francisco’s newest transit option after 1906.

They were built to park and repair cars in a city whose apartment buildings had no garages and, in a nod to the more-familiar horse stables, they were called “auto liveries.”

Nowadays, however, historic buildings – beloved by preservationists for the classic beaux-arts formalism that characterized the post-earthquake period – can pose a challenge for developers and housing-rights advocates.